In exchange, the sum already discussed, paid to Jasmine in full upon successful completion of the term.
They went on. Renata took the living arrangements, and here Jasmine had her own conditions ready, laid out the night before in the calm after the decision: her own bedroom, her own bathroom, a wing of the house that was hers and into which no one came without her invitation. Her schedule protected. She was still auditioning, still working, and her career came first. Appearances would be planned around her work, not the reverse, with reasonable notice, and never at the cost of a job. A clause that the marriage entitled neither party to anything of the other’s beyond what was written. No claim on her futureearnings. No claim on his. A clean financial line straight down the middle.
“And privacy,” she said. “Absolute. Nondisclosure both ways, binding past the dissolution, no expiration. Whatever this is, the world never learns it was anything but real. I’m not going to be the woman who married a billionaire for money. Not in the papers. Not ever.” She paused. “That part isn’t negotiable.”
“Of course,” Nate replied, voice smooth as butter. “If the truth were to get out, it would harm my reputation equally.”
Jasmine highly doubted that, but it seemed pointless to argue.
Renata and Richard worked through the remaining details of the terms. Jasmine answered when asked and otherwise sat very still, conserving herself, aware of the low ache already building in her hips and her spine from the cold and the tension and the effort of holding her face still.
At last Richard capped his pen. “I’ll have clean copies drawn by the end of the week.” He looked between them. “I think that covers us. Shall we shake on it?”
He extended his hand toward the center of the table.
“No,” Jasmine said.
She stood, gathering her legal pad, sliding her chair in. “No handshakes.” She let that land, the only barb she allowed herself the entire meeting. “I’ll sign the papers when they’re correct. Until then, nothing’s binding, and nothing’s real.”
And she walked out.
She kept the walk measured all the way across the boardroom, down the hushed corridor, into the elevator. The doors closed.The car began to drop, and her composure dropped with it. By the time the numbers hit the teens, her hands had begun to shake in earnest. She pressed them flat against the rail and watched her own reflection. A woman in black, having just agreed to sell a year of her life.
It was worth it, though. Sometimes the hardest things were, and she knew this deep in her core.
And no one would ever find out. She and Nate, along with their lawyers, had too much to lose.
She got into her car, pulled the door shut on the world, and sat in the underground parking structure with both hands on the wheel, exactly as she had the day of the diagnosis.
Then she picked up her phone and called her mother, because she could not hold this one alone for another minute.
“Hey, Jaz.” The voice came warm down the line, and Jasmine felt her throat close instantly. “I was just thinking about you. Did you eat today? You never eat when you’re stressed.”
“Mom.” It came out smaller than she meant. “I have to tell you something, and you’re not going to like it, but I need you to let me get all the way to the end before you say anything.”
A pause. When her mother spoke again, the warmth had sharpened. “I’m listening, baby.”
So Jasmine told her. All of it, the words coming out fast because she was afraid that if she paused too long, even stopped to take a deep breath, she would lose her nerve and tell her mom it was all a joke, that she wasn’t really marrying a billionaire for money.
When she finally finished, the line was quiet, and for one awful stretch she thought she’d finally given her mother more than even she could carry.
“Afake marriage.” Her mother breathed it out slow, stunned. “To a billionaire. For a hundred million dollars. Jasmine Rose Caulfield, when I asked if you were keeping something from me?—”
“I know.”
“—I did not havethison the list.”
A sound escaped Jasmine that was half-sob and half-laugh. In fact, she wasn’t sure if she was about to break out in tears or hysterical giggles.
“Okay.” She heard her mother pull in a breath, heard the kitchen chair scrape, pictured her standing at the little window. “Okay. Listen to me. I don’t like it. I want to be very clear that I do not like a single part of it… But.” Her voice turned soft. “You are thirty years old. You have carried this family on your back for years, and I am the most fortunate mother in the world because of it. I’ve also spent every one of those years wishing you’d let some of it go. If this is the thing that lets you finally stop being afraid, then it’s yours to choose, and I’ll stand beside you whatever you decide. You hear me? Whatever you decide. You will not do a single hard thing in this life alone. Not while I’m breathing.”
And there, in the dark of the parking garage, Jasmine put her forehead against the steering wheel and let herself cry. It was from relief, though. She wasn’t alone. She would never be alone.
CHAPTER 8
JASMINE
Nate’s house had no smell.
